Media and Culture of Violence

Video games and TV (by Mariana Santos)

We see violence everywhere: at school, at home, in the street, even in the shopping centre. This is related to the media.

Nowadays, video games and TV influence teenagers very much. People usually follow the things that they think are better or cooler and teenagers think that those movies and series where people fight and cars explode are cool. In Portugal, almost every boy has a shooting game, or a street racing game. There is also a very popular violent game calledGTA (Grand Theft Auto). In this game, the only thing you do is steal, run away from the police, and punch people in the street. Here, in Portugal, there aren´t many scandals due to video games, but in other countries, I read things about people killing because of video games.

I researched about this matter and I discovered that there are studies which have concluded that: if a teenager has a good atmosphere at home, he won’t be influenced by these games. He will just play them for fun or to kill time at weekends. But, if a teenager has a bad atmosphere at home, he will use those games to get revenge of life and maybe think that is the way for him to live.

There is also another important factor: parents’ responsibility. I mean, if they have an 8-year-old kid and are thinking about giving him a game, they shouldn’t give him a Call of Duty game, for example. The thing is: parents do that.This is very harmful. I´ll give you an example: there was a case of a group of students that made bombs because they saw it on the internet, and many other cases maybe more harmful like killing people and invading schools, all thanks to this matter.

I don’t think that the message conveyed by video games is encouraging teenagers to kill people and telling them that fighting is fine. People who invent games just do that because there is someone who likes them and is going to buy them. If these games weren’t popular, they wouldn’t be created. Besides, every violent game has the “don’t do this at home” warning.

To conclude, I play some violent games myself, like Call of Duty and I’m not out there killing people… So, violent media are only harmful if people don’t have the brains to distinguish reality from virtual world, or made-up scenes.

Why do I play these games?

What can you learn while playing these games?

The learning effect from playing several shooter games is versatile. You learn much about playing in teams, cooperation and assurance. Your partners must be good enough that you can trust them that they do their part correctly. Another important fact is that your reaction must be fast enough and your aiming exactly. You have to stay cool while playing 1 vs. 3 and do the best to win the game. All for one and one for all.

When and why do I play?

For me personally it really depends on many things. What have I to do for school? What can I do with friends? Do I go out? Am I tired? Am I ill?

I was playing a lot of time the last few years and discovered and learned that you can keep contact to your friends which life far away much better than only by writing or texting. After a hard day of work you sometimes really enjoy to talk to your friends, play a few rounds and don’t care about school or the job. It’s perfect to come down. Also a lot of gamers have a really good knowledge about the computer and the ten finger technique. So they can solve many problems at school or at work by themself.

Call of Duty versus Battlefield

You can only identify with characters of these games when you play the Offline-Mode because only there you choose different roles and only there is a story in the background with which you can identify. This works in both Call of Duty and Battlefield

These personalities influence the player in special actions. These actions work with special effects which generate a lot of action and unknown things. For example in the new Battlefield you are able to destroy jets from the air with heat seeking rockets. Also diving missions in Call of Duty show you an unknown world which is something new and shows the player something he has never experienced before. The player is influenced in such a way that he wants more. It’s just like the modern world: higher, faster, farther.

The player identifies with the character he is playing. He thinks for him, he lives his life and he shows him where to go and what to do. If his character dies, the player is unhappy. If he does something well, he is happy.

In these two games you play from the ego-perspective. So you see everything just if you were there.

The global consequences of these games are that more and more people tend to play because their friends or family do. The advantages are that you often get better known with computer technology and you learn to play alone but also in teams. You learn to fight alone for yourself and the team but also trust your team to cooperate with you. Disadvantages are that many people get addicted to playing and so do not do much sport anymore. The opinion that you’ll get aggressive and a potential amok-walker is often expressed, bit in our eyes it is not true. Because you also do not get a potential Life Coach only because you play Sims.

Are gamer potential suicidal maniacs?

If somebody ran amok, critics like to blame first-person-shooters. But are first-person-shooters really a reason for such an act?

Scientists have got different opinions. Some say this shooter games can make people aggressive and therefore dangerous for the population. Other academics can’t see any relation between gaming and getting maniac. That’s probably because you can’t compare virtual games with the real life. It’s a huge whether you are just clicking on a button or walking on the road while holding a heavy gun in your hand.

Far more realistic than playing computer games are for example Paintball or just rifle associations. In a rifle association you are aiming at targets, whereas Paintball means shooting with bullet-like paintballs at your “enemies” (in this case real people!). Such hobbies would be a realistic reason for getting aggressive, but the media likes to scapegoat computer games, probably because they polarize more and the paper will be sold better.

Did anybody realize that only first-person-shooter games are used as scapegoats whereas for example car accidents are not the fault of racing games, where sometimes mad driving gets rewarded?

Of course you are able to learn from these games. To look at another genre: You could be unfair and just foul your opponents in soccer games, but you will learn, that this kind of playing is destructive for your play and can cost you the win.

This task is an assessable task which covers the broad subject of media in modern society. "Media" could be defined as a means of mass communications in our society. Media today takes several forms: the traditional print media of newspapers, and journals and magazines: broadcasting media through radio and television, and, more recently, digital media through the use of computers and the internet. There is now also the growth of "social media" a development from digital media, such as Facebook, Twitter, My Space etc etc. There are many issues that arise from media in present society. This task requires you to research and address a topic of your choice below that looks at a particular issue in more details. For each topic in the list below, I have included several guiding questions to point you on what you might want to explore in the issue you have chosen. The task requires that you research your chosen topic, summarize your results of your research, thinking and views and present this research into a Power Point Presentation of about 15 minutes. You will be assessed on the quality of the material you have in your presentation, the depth and breadth of the topic covered and how you organize your presentation to capture the attention and interest of your audience.

TwinSpace- 2nd semester- Norway

2.Media and culture of violence- Tord, Ask, Trym.Axel,Markus

Media’s role in our culture of violence (How can media play a positive role rather than the negative image it gets?)

The violent content of the media (The pros and cons of regulating media. Should media be regulated or censored? Why and why not?)

Gaming industry (Discuss the issues involved)

Effects of gaming on young children

Children’s involvement in violence

Reducing the incidences of violence in public media

The use of violence used by the entertainment and information industries